


We’re the Beginning of the End

by storieswelove



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, New Year's Resolutions 2021, Spoilers for Book 6: Return of the Thief (Queen's Thief)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:20:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28614243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storieswelove/pseuds/storieswelove
Summary: Many years after the war with the Medes, the ground begins to shake in Eddis. In the city of Sounis, the queen of Eddis mourns her homeland. Her husband is there to comfort her.
Relationships: Eddis | Helen/Sophos
Comments: 16
Kudos: 29
Collections: New Year's Resolutions 2021





	We’re the Beginning of the End

**Author's Note:**

  * For [victoria_p (musesfool)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/gifts).



> To the prompter: I, too, want to know everything about Helen and Sophos and their friendship and marriage, and also the Eddisian diaspora. This fic came to me in the dead of night on New Years, so particularly fitting for this collection. I hope this soothes some of the content you were craving. 
> 
> Title from “Young Volcanoes” by Fall Out Boy. Yes, I hear the irony. 
> 
> This fic is part of a fandom effort to fill all the remaining 2020 Queen's Thief Yuletide prompts before September. Here goes nothing!

On the palace roof in Sounis, the queen of Eddis looked southeast across the city toward her mountains.

The ground had begun to shake in the city of Eddis with regularity. Never enough to cause damage — there were no temples collapsing or roofs caving in — but enough that Helen knew it was a sign from the Great Goddess that the end was near. She did not know if it would be in a year, or a decade, or perhaps still not in her lifetime, but she knew she could no longer visit her homeland lest she lead any of her people into the line of raining fire. 

It had been many years since Eddis had accepted the fate of her country, and her city was nearly clear and her people safe. But when, earlier in the week, a third messenger in as many months had arrived with news of the small, frequent earthquakes in the capital city, she had made the decision last night that she and her court would not return to Eddis. It felt as though an old wound had been reopened. She was a queen without her country, her people scattered across the lowlands and islands like the ash that had scattered across the valley in her dreams all those years ago. 

She continued to look out over the crenellations, remembering the last time she’d stood helplessly on a palace roof while her chest had felt split in two, also many years ago. And as though her thoughts had summoned him, Helen heard her husband’s heavy footsteps coming up behind her. She looked over her shoulder and he met her eye, smiling sadly. 

As she turned back toward Eddis, Sophos wrapped his arms around her. “Thinking of home?” 

Helen nodded, wiping the tears from her face with the heel of her hand. Sophos kissed the top of her head and held her tight. Sinking into the comfort of his embrace, she crossed her own arms over his and gripped his forearm. 

After several minutes, Sophos spoke again. 

“When you are ready,” he said quietly, head bent close to her ear, “I have something for you in the library.” 

Helen allowed herself a few more moments to grieve and then, taking one of her husband’s large hands in her own, she followed him down the stairs and across the palace to the library that overlooked the endless sea. 

When the guards opened the doors, Helen froze on the threshold, looking into the room on—

“My palace?” she said, voice choked. 

Paintings of the Eddisian palace in various sizes and styles were displayed on easels around the room. At first glance, Helen saw the newer throne room, her library, and the view of the Sacred Mountain east over the crenelated walls of her palace roof where she’d once sat with Eugenides on a snowy day, not so very many months before he made the decision to leave his homeland for good. She looked up at Sophos, who offered her a hesitant smile. 

“I had them commissioned.” 

“ _When_?” 

He shrugged. “Here and there, over the years. Some were painted by your own portraitist—” Helen saw Acacius’s distinct style in the larger portraits of the throne room, and in one of the smaller paintings of her armory “—and some were by my own art master and his apprentices.” She looked at him, confused. She didn’t remember any of the palace artists traveling on trips with them, though she and Sophos had been married for many years now. She may have forgotten. Sophos smiled wide now, guessing at her confusion. He said, “I sent them up on visits over the years, before the tremors started.” 

Shaking her head slowly, Helen stepped away from her husband and crossed the room in a trance, examining each painting in turn. There was even a pair of tiny ones, no bigger than her hand, of her own bedchamber and the view from outside her window. Looking at them, she was struck with a wave of nostalgia so fierce she nearly had to sit down. 

“Sophos…” she said, turning from painting to painting, now trying to take in the full effect at once.

“There’s one more thing,” he said, reaching for a dark green book hidden behind an easel and, settin setting it on one of the table, began to turn the vellum pages for her. “I’m not sure if you remember Demos, Fotis’s apprentice, but he sketched all of the palace during his visits. I had the sketches bound so you could have these too.” 

It was finally too much, and Helen began to cry in earnest. Sophos waved everyone from the room, and wrapped his arms around her again, tucking his chin over her head and pulling her into his chest. 

“I am so sorry, Helen,” he said quietly as she cried in his embrace. 

She cried for her country and for her crown and for herself. She cried in sorrow and in exhaustion and in complete and utter relief. She cried until her eyes were swollen and her body shook and she had to wrap her arms around Sophos’s waist to steady herself. 

And when she was finally able to even out her breathing, she pulled her face back from Sophos’s chest just enough to say, “Thank you.” 

“I am only sorry I could not do more.” 

She huffed a small laugh. “You have done more than I could have dreamed of.” 

He rubbed her back, still never easing his hold on her. Carefully, he said, “I thought we might give the painting of the library to Gen for his birthday. But only if you’re all right with it.” 

Helen laughed again, sniffling as she did. “Of course I am.” It was only Gen who understood the ferocity with which Helen ached, who had been the first to accept the loss of his homeland, though for very different reasons. He missed it as much as she did, Helen knew. 

“What if we go hunting soon? We have court sessions the next few days, we could after that.” 

“You have a council meeting with your barons next week.” 

“My barons can wait. Gods know they’ve caused me enough problems, let them suffer for a bit.” 

She laughed into his chest. “Yes. Hunting would be nice.” 

“Good. I’ll arrange it.”

He stroked her hair gently and she pulled away from his chest to look up at him. She had stopped crying, but her eyes were heavy and swollen from the tears. His smile was tinged with sadness for her pain. Overwhelmed again, and at a loss for words, she kissed him. 

“Thank you,” she said again. 

He kissed her once more. “Anything for you.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [hippolytas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hippolytas/pseuds/hippolytas) for her pass on this.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Come scream about QT with me on tumblr @ [storieswelove](storieswelove.tumblr.com) or [the Queen's Thief discord](https://discord.gg/JYJufae).


End file.
